The “Break it Down” Blog

Summary [8.5 out of 10]

Call of Duty 5: World at War is a must-have COD title for fans of the series and a title dripping with enough polish, charm and replayability that gamers previously not enamored with the COD series might want to rent it and give it a try.

Introduction

Call of Duty: World at War is essentially a re-skinned version of the 2007 release in the popular Call of Duty series, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare. The look and feel is exactly the same from the menu function, down to the points system. This does not stop this from being a great game, for there is a couple great new features:

• 4-Player Co-op Campaign: This enables you to play the single player campaign, with up to 3 of your friends.
• Zombie Nazi Mode: Essentially this is the COD version of Horde mode from the popular Gears of War 2 game. You are placed in a house defending yourself from droves of zombie Nazi’s are creeping closer on bigger and bigger numbers. Your ultimate mission to fend them off and ultimately survive.

Campaign game play is reminiscent of the original COD games in the series where you find your self representing US marines, and Russian soldiers, finding your self fighting off the Japanese, and Nazi’s. You find your self using most of commonly used weapons, with some new adds, the flame thrower for one was very nice. Who doesn’t like to set stuff on fire? And the fire looks nice!  It was a nice to find some destructive elements in the environment, for example you can toast the palm trees. You will also find slightly more gore in this game than the previous in the series, for its not uncommon to find your trench mate with 1/2 a skull. Even though its pale in comparison to Gear of War and blood squiring on the screen, I for one welcome the new
element of detail.

Multiplayer mode you will find plays almost EXACTLY like COD4, just in a not so recent time. Some minor changes were made to the in game perks system for consecutive kills. In COD4 for a 7 kill streak you would be able to call in a gun ship chopper, since there weren’t any in WWII, you can now call in dogs that hunt the map for you opponents. The point system remain the same, gaining XP to level up and unlock new weapons to pwn n00bs.

The Great

• 2 words… co-op campaign
• Vehicles in multiplayer modes

The Good

• Running off of the popular and familiar COD4 engine, graphics are smooth and realistic
• Multiplayer is flawless even with huge battles
• Prestige mode for multiplayer and collectibles make for TONS of replay value
• Realistic Flames

The Bad

• Another title in the WW2 genre just seems like a let-down; can’t we just dust off our copies of COD2?
• After COD4, getting used to antiquated weaponry takes some time…(Where oh where is my ACOG scope??)
• SHORT Campaign mode… seriously? I’m done… already?
• Damn Kamikaze attacks from the AI  just seem too frequent

Conclusion [8.5 out of 10]

This game offers great gameplay, and is a nice add to the series. But in the end it almost comes down to your personal like of time lines. I’m a self-proclaimed war buff, I really liked playing in the theaters of the south pacific, and the ruins of Stalingrad. Others might be more inclined to like the recent COD4 title set in a more modern setting, either way your getting some good entertainment.

Extra: Xbox360 vs PS3 Versions

The controls on the 360 seem a little sluggish, and bumping up the sensitivity to high is too high. When playing with the control sensitivity on normal on the PS3, snappy yet accurate enough to get that head shot.

Besides the slightly tweaked out controls we could see no difference between the two versions — and believe me I tried. I did cutscene comparisons, loading time comparisons, graphic/fx quality comparisons, sound quality comparisons and could find no discernable differences between the Xbox 360 and PS3 versions of this title.

You are safe buying either version — you’ll get an excellent experience either way.